Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Search Term/Keyword "Occupy" Banned by China in Sina Weibo.com

The increasing popularity and acceptance of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement across the globe is certainly haunting the nations which believe on strict censorship of media. The OWS started with just few hundreds from lower Manhattan has spread Manhattan to cities around the globe, including London, Auckland, Toronto, and Rome, among many others.

Sina Weibo: China's hyper-popular microblogging site

Many in the world, especially anti-communism think tanks, believe strictly that if the Chinese government is against it, you're probably doing something right. Reportedly, China has taken strict measures to stop prospective “Occupy Shanghai” movement and tried to cut the basic means which helped transform to a global movement started with a very few numbers of activists in U.S.

According to UC Berkeley publication China Digital Times, Sina Weibo, China's hyper-popular microblogging site, is now restricting any and all search keywords that could tentatively be related with OWS movement.

"A long list of banned keywords on Sina Weibo’s search function has been uncovered and tested by the CDT team yesterday," writes Sandra Hernandez. "All the listed phrases stick to one simple rule: a combination of 'occupy' (占领) and a place name—provincial capitals, economically developed regions, and few symbolic local areas."

In short hundreds of millions of Sina Weibo users are no longer allowed to search for "Ocupy Beijing," for instance.